Data is everywhere. Data is used to back up assumptions presented as facts. We look to data to create information that we base business, personal and community decisions on. Not only are the absolutes of the numbers important, but how they were obtained, how they are analyzed, and what assumptions are made are critical to assessing the value of the data. This creates uncertainty and even applying the scientific method is no basis for comfort.
One such example is "p-hacking," in which … [Read more...]

IT security is a complex and very broad topic that requires multiple elements of an organization working well together. At the systems level you must consider business, information, data and solution architectures. Next there are all the process designs that overlay these systems. Therefore just being able to collect, patch and provide device vulnerability data should not be considered protecting against a ransomware attack. That instead requires a layered security approach that can anticipate … [Read more...]

In this 3rd and final installment we consider the most challenging and perhaps most significant of the requirements for these next generation IT asset management (ITAM) solutions.
While the first set of processes in a unified ITAM solution is to present Discovery, Inventory and Normalization as a single platform, there are key elements of integration, reporting, cloud and license awareness that need to be considered.
Integration or sharing is relatively straight forward. Does the platform … [Read more...]

Part 1 of our series, The Changing Nature of ITAM Solutions,introduced the idea that there is a new generation of ITAM tools that are coming of age. While these tools are specialized enough to be of real value in discrete use cases such as Software Asset Management, they are also broad enough to provide actionable intelligence to enable proactive control of IT expenditures.
In this installment, we want to introduce three of the "must have" elements in these new ITAM solutions which … [Read more...]

There is a significant resurgence of interest in IT asset management tools. Just talk to your Gartner analyst and you will learn the volume of inquiries is dramatically increasing. With the rise of Shadow IT, the continual need to transform IT platforms, and the heightened exposure to unpredictable software license expenses caused by cloud and virtualization, the demand for more proactive management of hardware and software assets and costs is growing across the enterprise.
To help address … [Read more...]

Scalable and Asset Vision®, the Hot SaaS SAM solution, will again be at the Gartner IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management Summit in Dallas November 2nd thru the 4th. If you have registered, be sure to come by and collect your bottle of fiery Austin, Texas hot sauce and see how Asset Vision can address SAM in the Cloud era.
In this new world of the cloud, capturing, assessing and managing software assets is becoming more and more difficult. IT Asset Management in the cloud era … [Read more...]

If you’re looking to address looming SQL Server costs, get accurate data on the productive use of each instance.
The first thing to consider is the fact that Microsoft doesn’t care about where SQL Server is installed. The following quote is lifted directly from the most recent Microsoft document on licensing server technologies (1):
“Use terms for each software license specify the number of instances of software that you can run on a particular server at a time, rather than the number of … [Read more...]

The Perfect Storm: Reductions in funding per student, despite much greater demands on K-12 IT Asset Management, means further challenges for school district IT.
K-12 IT and Finance teams are struggling with the impact of reductions in funding per student, while still needing to provide for more and better reporting, security, and student enablement. To add to their challenge, factor in the "more systems per student" ratio mandate, new teaching methodologies, new technology, and new software … [Read more...]

In order for IT procurement and IT asset management to provide more value to their organizations, their best practices must bridge more than a few gaps.
IT procurement teams are often separated from IT asset management by more than responsibility, since procurement is typically found in the finance department, whereas IT asset management is a role more likely to be found in the IT department. Both IT asset management and IT procurement must bridge departmental silos in order to reduce IT … [Read more...]

Virtualization, mobility, cloud deployment, and core/processor licensing have conspired to ensure that, without an understanding of the rules around license allocation, it is impossible to get a full picture of your license position. As we have seen, traditional methods that concern themselves with what you own vs. counting what you have installed simply cannot deal with today’s licensing reality. License allocation takes into consideration the various use rights, virtualization and server … [Read more...]

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We provide an integrated, cloud-based, product-set that discovers and aggregates IT asset, usage, license and procurement information, to present coherent and actionable intelligence, supported by industry expertise, to optimize an organizations investment in IT. Our software asset management services have led many businesses to improve. Let your business thrive with solutions and optimization by Scalable.